Preview: Batman: Arkham Knight puts the “Bat” in “Batmobile”

New vehicle adds some pizzazz to the next series entry, now delayed until 2015.

Looking back on the Arkham games so far, it's a little surprising that Batman has had to rely on his gadgets and his own two feet to get around. Both Arkham City and Arkham Origins take place in the kind of huge, sprawling cityscapes that a game like Grand Theft Auto would let you explore using a wide variety of vehicles. In the world of Arkham, Batman instead has to travel by grappling to nearby rooftops and gliding through the air like a paper airplane. It's an incredibly fun way to get around, but it makes Batman himself feel a bit removed from the criminal action on the city streets below him—more like a remote surveillance drone than an on-the-ground force that strikes fear into evil-doers.

Bat-Delay

Rocksteady has previously said that Arkham Knight will be its final game in the series, so it's perhaps not surprising that the developer has "extended development time" into 2015 to make sure it incorporates everything it wants into the experience. The developer gave the usual song and dance about wanting to deliver an experience of the highest quality and making sure that it lived up to the awesome vision it has for the series' final entry. All we heard was the sound of game retailers' 2014 holiday seasons getting just a little bit thinner.

This is all to say that Arkham Knight's introduction of the Batmobile feels a little out of place for the series, but it's also a welcome addition that could make Batman feel more connected to the world of Gotham. A pre-E3 demo of the game showed off how Batman can summon his iconic vehicle with a click of a remote and hop in it with a smooth cut scene as it slides into position.

There's something about boosting the Batmobile over a conveniently placed ramp to get to a nearby ledge that's much more satisfying than simply attaching a grappling hook to the top of the wall and zooming up there. Similarly, knocking down a chain-link fence with a giant black vehicle is certainly more fun than simply hopping over it, as Batman might have done in previous games. An earlier hands-off demo showed the Batmobile dodging Riddler-sprung traps as it tore along the winding walls of a cavern, twisting completely perpendicular to the ground at points and defying physics seemingly via sheer force of will. We didn't get to tear around the city streets in our short demo, but we're looking forward to the chance to patrol the street in the beast of a vehicle.

The Batmobile is more than just a way to get around, though; it also introduces the biggest change to combat the series has yet seen, by far. By switching into "tank mode," the Batmobile transforms from fast-paced sports car to an armored behemoth that can change directions and move laterally on a dime. An early tutorial section for this new mode had the Batmobile quickly dodging to the side to avoid telegraphed red laser pointers representing impending shots and then returning fire with both a light machine gun and heavy cannons. The tactical positioning involved in this new mode felt satisfying from the start, but it was very different from the more directly physical combat of previous Arkham games, with its focus on stealth and hand-to-hand combat.

Not that the Batmobile isn't useful for these kinds of traditional battles, as well. One section saw Batman using the Batmobile's riot suppressor cannon to knock out a few thugs, then having to rush over on foot to finish the job in hand-to-hand combat. In another section in which the car sat conveniently outside a nearby window, Batman gained the ability to integrate a "Batmobile-assisted takedown" into his hand-to-hand combos, knocking an enemy into the air with a gloved fist and then remotely activating the vehicle's guns to knock that enemy into the back wall. It's pretty cool to watch the first time, but it's the kind of thing I can see coming off as played out and gimmicky as the game goes on.

The Batmobile also serves as a kind of extension of the utility belt tools that Batman can use to solve the game's light puzzles. In one section of the demo, a Batmobile winch served as a stand-in for a broken elevator cable, raising and lowering the car remotely to get Batman into a basement full of enemy thugs. Later on, that same Batmobile became a temporary protection unit for a number of innocent bystander guards that Batman had to rescue and served as the home base Batman had to return to. As narratively convenient tools go, the Batmobile definitely serves its purpose well.

Outside of Batman's new ride, Arkham Knight so far seems like an incremental update to the best-in-class open-world brawling of the previous Arkham games. In a hands-off portion of the demo, the developers showed a new system that makes it much easier to chain grappling hook glides together without pause, making one of the best forms of video game locomotion ever created a little better. The developers also showed off a new drone helicopter scanner that lets Batman tag enemy positions from afar as he eavesdrops on communications traffic (in this case, news of Scarecrow plotting with the mysterious Arkham Knight, who has suspiciously prescient knowledge of Batman's weaknesses).

We'll see if there are more additions by the time Arkham Knight sees its now-delayed release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2015. As it stands, simply adding the intriguing new Batmobile to the tried-and-true brawling perfection of previous Arkham games is enough to have us excited.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl